


Correspondence

by HenryMercury



Series: Avatar Prompts [3]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, Pining, Slow Burn, ends at book 4's end, long timeframe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: For a tumblr prompt: "Lin & Kya, 'Don't call me that!'"





	

**Author's Note:**

> For a [tumblr prompt](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/post/155066074982/for-prompts-lin-kya-9): "Lin & Kya, 'Don't call me that!'"

"This is dumb."

Lin pauses in her writing and glares at Kya. At fifteen, Lin is already angry beyond her years. Her frowns are so scrunchy and intense they make Kya want to sketch her just to capture all those lines, and the way the shadows fall across her face. It's too bad Kya's no master with a pencil, and inking is an application of waterbending that's never come naturally. She'll have to ask for a camera for her next birthday and figure out how to take snaps of Lin without her crushing all the metal in the camera seconds afterwards.

She could put a photo of Lin on her dresser, right? There'd be nothing weird about that, would there? She could take pictures of her other friends and put them up too so that it wouldn't seem suspicious.

"It's not dumb," Lin hisses. "Chief's the most notorious eavesdropper in the world."

"So what? Toph's the most laid-back mom ever. Whatever you're writing down, it's not like she'd really try to stop you, or punish you for it. Unless you robbed a bank. If you robbed a bank then I'm offended that you didn't inv—"

"I didn't rob any bank!" Lin positively _growls_.

Kya grins. She's too adorable when she's angry and it's so _easy_ to make her that way. It's a good life, Kya thinks—being best friends with Lin Beifong.

"True. If you had, maybe you could write that note to me with a pen that actually _worked_ ," Kya points out how slowly Lin is scribbling on her little notepad. It's something Toph brought home in a bundle of papers. Lin's old enough now that her mom sometimes gets her to read them out for her. Lin takes great pride in that.

Lin thrusts the little booklet in Kya's direction and then stares resolutely at the floor.

Kya looks at the characters scrawled there. Her heart rate rises too quickly. She feels vaguely sick.

"You _like_ _Tenzin?_ " she asks in disbelief.

Lin looks ready to strangle her. She silences Kya with the most aggressive _shh_ in history.

"But _why_?" Kya asks. "And why tell me about it?"

"He's cute, alright. And he _gets_ it—the expectations on us, the responsibilities. I'm sorry if it's weird for you, since he's your brother. It's just that... you're my best friend, alright? Was I supposed to keep this from you?"

"I'm glad you told me," Kya says, because Lin wants reassurance and she can't help but give it to her. It's rare that Lin talks about her feelings without being locked in a room and interrogated in order to get a confession that, no, Lin Beifong is not in fact made of stone. Kya's always telling her that just being open about these things would do her mental health a world of good.

Now it's Lin who's expressing herself while Kya's feelings fester.

"What about you, any new guys catch your eye this week?" Lin teases.

"Well, it's complicated," says Kya, because she's still feeling too rattled to lie convincingly, especially to someone as good at picking out bullshit as Lin.

When she doesn't continue, Lin raises a brow and Kya has no choice but to elaborate.

"I've been thinking, and..." she pauses a moment, wonders whether she's really going to do this, and then realises that of course she is. Her energy is way up in this moment, she's got an opportunity to balance a revelation of her own against the one Lin's just made, and she's wanted Lin to know this for some time already—hoped against hope that she'll be fine with it, maybe even more than fine. It'd all be easier if she could just transfer the knowledge straight to Lin's brain, and never have to actually say the words.

"And?"

Kya picks up the pen and writes on Lin's notepad instead of talking. It feels like less of a dumb idea now.

 _Dear Officer Lin,_ she begins, as though writing an actual letter. Stalling, yes, but Lin's indignation never fails to make her feel better. It's how she knows everything is normal.

"Don't call me that," Lin protests. "It's just _embarrassing_ since I haven't graduated from the academy yet."

 _I think I'm not that interested in boys_ , Kya writes.

Lin scoffs, then realises Kya isn't laughing. "But you're _always_ talking about boys!"

"Yeah, 'cause I figured that was how it should be. And boys can be cool—at least when they're _not_ Tenzin," she lets out a shaky laugh, a little high on the nerves involved in this conversation. They spring up even though she's usually so comfortable with Lin. Even though she doesn't want this to be a big deal. "But when it comes to who I _like_ like, girls are... different. It's hard to tell what's what when you're really great friends with people, or you just think they're really cute; it's confusing trying to tell who you want to be with and how. But I think I've finally figured it out."

Lin is quiet for a moment. Thoughtful. "Okay," she says.

"That's all?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Kya can't voice the real answer to that question. It looks like things in real life don't happen how they do in the romance novels she sometimes picks up from second hand bookstores. Knowing that fiction is just that is one thing, but actually feeling her daydreams dissipate adds a layer of depth.

"I can't believe you like _Tenzin_ ," she directs the conversation back away from herself.

Lin _blushes_.

It's not too late, Kya tells herself. Lin's not actually _dating_ her brother. This could all blow over, leaving her to pine after her best friend in peace.

 

 

It takes Lin and Tenzin almost an entire year to get to the point of going on a date which they'll _both admit_ is a date, and which doesn't involve any form of paperwork. It gets less weird, and at the same time it doesn't. It's like a scab that keeps healing and then cracking open again as soon as you think you can stop taking extra care with it.

"I'm happy you're happy," Kya tells Lin. Because that's what people say in situations like this, and she actually _is_ happy that Lin is happy. She'd just be _happier_ if Lin were happy with her instead of with her brother.

Once Lin and Tenzin's dating starts for real, though, Kya knows it's time to give up. She can never date Lin now. It's one of those rules, isn't it? You don't date the people that your best friends have dated, and you don't date people that your siblings have dated. Especially not your _younger brother_. That's sad. Kya's not going to be sad. (Not that kind of sad, anyway.)

This is the first step to getting over Lin. If you amputate the wounded area then the scab can't hurt you with its opening and closing anymore, can it? It's almost peaceful, finally knowing it's time to give up.

 

*

 

Lin likes the letters, even though the medium is mostly just good for provoking nostalgia. Friendship with Kya is one thing she actually does feel nostalgic about. One thing from childhood that hasn't been sullied in one unforgivable way or another.

She tries not to think of those last conversations with Tenzin and stares hard at the papers on her desk to distract herself. For a decade now, Kya's been writing to Lin about her escapades from all over the four nations. She left Air Temple Island to travel when she was seventeen—and Lin saw her itching to do so earlier than that, too—and hasn't stayed in one place for more than a few months at a time ever since. Twenty-seven-year-old Kya is just as bold and shameless in many of her pursuits as seventeen-year-old Kya. Lin still has the old letters for comparison.

Lin's made sure the letters arrive at the office for her rather than at home, because even though Toph can't read them, she's not above grabbing someone off the street to do it for her. Lin tends to arrive at work early (or just sleep under her desk) so she's able to snap up the morning's mail before anyone else can get curious—whereas she doesn't spend enough time at home anymore to trust she'll be the first to see whatever's delivered there.  

Lin's face reddens as she reads the latest one. Kya's found a new girl to entertain her, an up-and-coming fire nation diplomat. Lin hopes these dalliances don't cause some kind of international incident. From what Kya says about the girl—Asesa, her name is—they're more involved that Kya usually gets with people. Without a relationship of her own to feel secure in for the first time in what feels like forever (and adds up to half her life) Lin finds the letter difficult to read. Kya inquires about things at her end, asks about how things with Tenzin are going, and Lin folds the letter quickly and stows it away in her desk drawer.

She doesn't answer it in the weeks it takes for the next letter to arrive. By then Asesa is a thing of the past, despite the affection that had seemed to be there. Lin knows Kya better than to be surprised. Unfortunately the way Kya flits from one partner to another doesn't make her someone Lin expects to understand her problems right now. The number of years she spent with Tenzin, years that she can see were wasted on him now that they've all come to nothing...

She doesn't answer the next letter either. She doesn't know how to explain her current state and she doesn't know how to pretend the grief of losing such a huge investment of time and love isn't completely consuming her right now.

The more letters go unanswered, the less she knows how to suddenly start responding again.

Six letters pile up before Kya stops writing

and arrives at Lin's door.

 

*

 

"Oh, good, you're alive," she says when Lin swings the door open.

She looks grumpier than usual, although Kya supposes it's been a while since she's seen this face in person and her memory could just have softened the reality. She tries to visit regularly, but transport isn't exactly reliable in many corners of the four nations. Some places she can score a train ride. Others she's lucky if she can find a limping ostrich-horse. She wouldn't much like the idea of flying even if she could afford to take airships all around the place. Airsickness is a fine quality for the daughter of the man who was for some time the only airbender on earth, but it's not a thing she can overcome just by wanting to. Kya crosses as much distance as she can on water. Boats are infinitely cheaper than airships, and they're comfortable, and she can make a small vessel speedier and safer—even earn a few yuans here and there by supplementing someone else's voyage with her waterbending.

"I guess you want to come in," Lin flicks her wrist to indicate that Kya should follow her inside as she turns away from the door. She's wrapped up in one of her big grey overcoats, but the slippers on her feet make it look more like a dressing gown.  

"It's nine in the morning, are you taking a day off or something?" Kya asks.

Lin huffs. "Not voluntarily."

"Does this have something to do with the reason you haven't been answering my letters?"

"There's no _one_ reason."

"For the letters, or for the forced day off?"

"Both!" Lin snaps. They reach the cramped kitchenette—smaller than Lin could afford, but Kya knows she rarely cooks, so it's neither here nor there to her. Tenzin's never had a flair for the culinary either. The two of them have probably eaten plain rice on dates because it was the most expedient option.

"What's going on with you?"

"Like nobody's already told you," Lin says bitterly. "You're his sister, you don't need to be told by _me_ to find these things out."

Actually, Kya hasn't asked anyone about Lin. Lin's private about her business and more often than not nobody can share anything enlightening—or worse, people judge her the wrong way and end up passing on false information. Kya doesn't want gossip and hearsay about her friend.

She phoned in to the police station in the hope of catching Lin, but she'd been out of the office then too, according to her mother. Toph had only shared that Lin was 'off moping' and Kya had known it was time to come back in person.

Still, the pieces are falling together now without Lin having to spell it out any more clearly. It's something about Tenzin, and it's bad enough that Lin's openly cut up about it. Kya's brother is nowhere in sight, and surely any good boyfriend would be present if his tough-as-nails girlfriend had somehow ended up as run-down as Lin is now. Not that Kya puts bailing on the tough moments past an airbender...

"You broke up," she concludes.

"Yeah." Lin's voice is rough, like she's trying hard not to cry. It's horrible, and it makes Kya want to cry herself.

Lin wrenches a cupboard door open and Kya sees that the only things on the shelf behind it are bottles; one of oyster sauce, the other two of liquor.

"Oh no you don't," she says, and carefully but firmly takes the booze out of Lin's hand.

"I'm an adult, I have the right to—"

"Yeah, yeah. But if you're gonna drink away your sorrows right now, you're not going to do it at home alone."

"I'm not alone, you're here."

"Still sad. I'm taking you out somewhere."

Lin frowns. "I thought we just agreed it was nine in the morning."

"I know a place far enough underground that nobody gives a hogmonkey's ass about the time of day. It's open all hours. Earthbender dive, technically. You should be right at home."

"Not _The Chasm_ ," Lin says warily. And yeah, that's the place. "We've conducted a half-dozen busts there in the past year alone. The terra triad has been using it as—"

"Well if it _really_ makes you feel better, you can arrest anyone you see doing anything terribly illegal," Kya allows. After all, her goal is to pull Lin out of this vicious cycle of sulking right now. With one notable exception, making arrests has always cheered Lin up.

"Fine," Lin says. "And don't think I'm oblivious to what kind of club this is, either. The _Chasm_. Honestly."

"What?" Kya shrugs. "It's like... a _tiny_ bit subtle."

"No, it's not." Lin gives her a flat look. It's already an improvement on the face she was wearing when Kya got here.

 

*

 

"C'mon, Officer Beifong," Kya holds a hand out as she tries to inch her way away from the wall and towards the dancefloor.

"Don't call me that," Lin hisses, eyes flickering around the room as if to say _You'll blow my cover_.

"If you really want to blend in with this crowd, you'll get over here and dance," Kya argues.

Lin's slammed down enough drinks within the first hour of their arrival at the club that she's almost considering letting the heavy beat of the music carry her away. The way it rumbles through the floor _is_ rather appealing. Like the hard earth under her is alive, like the music itself is earthbending. With Kya's pestering as an excuse, _and_ with the desire to blend in as a very real motivation, Lin gives in and lets Kya take her by the hand and lead her into the fray.

Dancing in a place like this doesn't require much skill—a fact for which Lin is grateful. It's dark and cramped on the floor and all that's really required is the sway that naturally arises from the combination of alcohol and music. Kya goes a little beyond that, rolling her hips around purposefully, moving her hands in a smooth, hypnotic motion, letting her long hair swing—but most of the people around them are just bobbing, or leaning into one another, or juggling drinks as they push through the crowd. Many of these people look like they haven't been sober in days. For once, Lin can actually believe that nobody cares what she's doing, whether she looks stupid doing it or not.

She leans more into the pulsing rhythm and finds Kya looking at her, a pleased smile on her face. Before Lin can feel self-conscious, Kya's taken one of her hands in her own and is pulling Lin into the same dance she's doing. One of Kya's arms drags Lin's around in time, while the other comes to rest on her waist. With these points of contact, it's easier to move closer to Kya. They were already moving in limited space, but now their bodies brush if they both happen to lean forward. Lin looks over Kya's shoulder because staring right into her eyes at this distance would be too intense, too awkward, too... too _real_ , Lin thinks. Too likely to force her to admit that this is all real.

They turn part of the way around on the spot and Lin catches sight of a couple over Kya's shoulder. Two women, one of them very tall and short-haired, the other bedecked in metal jewellery. The darkness and flashing lights make it difficult to pick out any more detail, and the way that the women's hands and mouth roam all over each other also makes it hard. Lin wants to look away immediately—and yet her gaze lingers another several seconds. There's something bizarrely mesmerising about this sight.

She has no way of knowing whether the couple are together outside this club, whether they're married or complete strangers. Either way, the level of intimacy they have right here on this dancefloor exceeds anything Lin can expect to find in her life from now on. She feels Kya close to her and wonders when the next time anyone will hold her even this close will be, let alone when the next time anyone will kiss her will be. She doesn't know how to start over after having had someone for so long. How to make the slow approach to that level of comfortable intimacy with someone new. How to even _find_ someone who understands her, let alone manages to _like_ her...

Kya catches her. "Stop thinking so hard," she says. "Just let go."

Letting go is the perfect opposite of what Lin's best at doing, usually, but the alcohol and the surroundings make everything just surreal enough that it might be possible. Might be possible to just follow her muddled impulses without the consequences chasing her back out of this place.

So she does let go, and grinds another little bit closer to Kya.

"Wow," Kya says, "Who knew that'd actually work?"

They continue with the strange something-like-dancing until Lin really isn't thinking about it anymore. She can't keep track of time, can't even keep track of how many songs have played because they keep blending into one another rather than just starting and ending. She can't fully keep track of the movements she and Kya are making, either; they blend almost the same way the songs do, moving through a crowd but connected only to each other, somehow as alone together as ever but uninhibited by the awkwardness of having to inhabit a room all by themselves.

They're so close already, it's almost an accident. It could probably pass for one. Lin moves her face to the side so that it's close enough to Kya's face to touch. Lin's lips brush across Kya's, and it's strangely exhilarating, crossing into that territory with someone who isn't Tenzin. Someone who isn't Tenzin, but who's still no stranger. It feels like she might get one last piece of intimacy before she's doomed to do without it for... well, who knows? Years, it could be. Maybe forever.

Now that she's close enough, and she's convinced herself that she wants it, Lin leans in more purposefully. She doesn't do things by halves, after all. She doesn't skirt around things or try to have it both ways, committed and not. She doesn't half-ass her actions like some evasive airbender.

She kisses Kya properly, and it's unfamiliar and not, softer than Tenzin but surer at the same time, and the height difference occupies the back of her mind for a moment, and it's over just as Lin thinks it's getting started.

"What are you doing?" Kya asks, eyes wide.

"I'm doing what people do in places like this," Lin replies, throwing a pointed look at a couple nearby them who are really going at it. Honestly, Lin could probably arrest them for whatever unsubtle manoeuvre it is they're trying to execute right now.

"But why?"

"What's it to you, anyway?" Lin asks, too defensive, her lips altogether looser than she likes them to be. Later, sober and reflective, Lin will search for worse words she could have said in this moment and struggle to find any.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means what's one more hookup?" The voice in Lin's head that would otherwise be screaming for her to _shut up for the sake of all she holds dear_ is a faint gurgle in the sea of whisky her body has become. "You just jump around from one girl to another. Everything's casual to you."

Kya looks at her with hurt in her eyes for a moment before shrugging it off.

"I'm all for rebound hookups," she says firmly, but her hand is slowly pushing Lin away from her as she says it. "Just not with people I've ever been in love with, not when they're way drunker than I am, and not when it's my _brother_ they're rebounding from."

" _Who_ were you in love with?" Lin asks dumbly. She must have misheard. It's hard to hear anything clearly in here. That's sure to be the explanation.

Kya shakes her head and doesn't reiterate. "If you really feel like trying it out with one of the ladies, you can probably take your pick of this lot," she says instead. "A handsome face they haven't seen around here before, a set of arms like yours, couple of scars to show you're a badass... they'll be lining up."

But the idea sours quickly as Lin looks around. A pit opens up in her stomach and all the booze she's had rushes to fill it. Lin's familiar with the point at which being drunk stops feeling good, and she's there now.

"I don't feel well," she tells Kya. "Take me home."

Kya's hand at her elbow as they move back out of the club feels better than some strangers mouth on her could have done.

 

*

 

Kya made the right call. She absolutely made the right call. She tells this over and over to the voice of her younger self in her head, complaining about how close she'd come—how she'd once have given anything to have Lin Beifong trying to kiss her, and now she's gone and passed that chance up.

Kya's been well and truly over Lin for years—or so she's believed. Somehow that voice is stronger now than it was a day ago. Kya made the right call, but she isn't without her regrets. She focuses on how many more regrets she'd have if she'd gone through with... whatever Lin was angling for. Lin doesn't do that kind of spontaneity, that kind of casual intimacy. Lin would just end up more confused, and she'd push Kya away, and they'd be in tatters already if anything had happened. Kya reminds herself of that whenever she starts to think about the pressure of Lin's whisky-flavoured lips against her own.

It hadn't meant anything to Lin. Lin just thought Kya would be an easy—

Kya swallows down the hurt she still feels at the words Lin had chosen. Drunk, when everyone says stupid shit they don't really mean—but also when people are more likely to dredge up the unpleasant truths their sober selves wouldn't voice. It's not like Lin holds back an awful lot regardless of her BAC, but...

Kya grabs another glass of water before she's tempted to pour herself some of something harder. It may be night time, but she and Lin stumbled out of The Chasm at midday and after seeing Lin back home Kya napped until sundown, so the hangover is equivalent to morning-fresh.

As she sips the water she goes and rummages through her brothers' stuff. She finds what she's looking for and spreads the paper out on the table. She studies the world map, eyes all the places she hasn't seen yet and the ones she's enjoyed most in her travels so far.

Part of her feels bad, because Lin needs a friend right now. But Kya needs things too, and right now Kya needs not to be _here_ anymore.

 

*

 

Like they adults they're supposed to be, they've resorted to telephone correspondence at last. The mental growing up process may have been hastened along, recently, by the wire-grey hairs sneaking into the sides of Lin's bun behind her ears. She doesn't care what she looks like—hasn't cared about the wrinkles or hollows around her eyes that appear with stress; she does an important job and she doesn't need to waste her energy on worrying about something as useless as being easy on other people's eyes. If she'd ever cared about that sort of thing she'd have had an even harder time around the whole Su debacle.

She's only forty, but she's always lived tough. She'll keep doing that for a good time longer, it's just... well, Lin's made peace with many varieties of possible and even probable death. Growing older and older and _older_ until she's just a husk with no one around her who cares enough to stay once the company becomes truly thankless just isn't one of those. It's a long way off, but the touch of grey reminds her that time is in motion, going faster than it feels like it is.

Kya still doesn't look a day over twenty-five, if you ask Lin.

Anyway, they talk on the phone nowadays. More and more of the places Kya's travelled have installed lines now, and Kya herself has been more stationary more of the time, living at the south pole with Katara. Responsibility sits differently on her shoulders than it ever did on Tenzin's. It slopes and slides somehow, whereas Tenzin has always been so boxy and stiff. Responsibility's a look Lin can't help but like on anyone, but it's coupled with the troubling fact of Kya's unhappiness.

"I'm tempted to run away to Ember Island, catch the Fire Nation summer instead of our winter down here," Kya says, joking in a way that Lin thinks means deep down she's not joking at all. "This is probably my last opportunity to call before the ice closes and it's dark and horrible for ages. Won't be able to make the trip up to this phone."

 _Do you really have to stay?_ Lin finds herself tempted to ask, but she knows that Kya is needed at the pole, as she has been since Aang's passing. _Do you want me to come and stay with you?_ she'd offer, if not for the need to keep an eye on Republic City.

"The winter will pass in no time," Lin tries to comfort her friend. She doesn't exactly buy her own attempts. "Like hibernation. You'll just wake up at the end of it and the months will have disappeared."

Kya laughs. "I wish," she says. "Anyway, I'm going to book a place on Ember Island for after winter, so I have something to look forward to."

"That sounds nice."

"Want to join me?"

Lin thinks of sun and sandbending and beautifully ragged cliffs and rock pools and realises that she does want to.

But her answer to every invitation is the same: "I can't predict what work will need from me then."

"Okay."

"Sorry."

"I'd better go now. It was good to hear your voice."

There's no ice that closes Republic City in, and at this time of year it's as much summer here as it is on Ember Island, but as Lin hangs up the phone she too braces herself for a winter.

It's during times like this, periods without Kya around or writing to her or speaking in her ear, that Lin recalls that thing Kya said to her way back during that regrettable visit to The Chasm, after Lin's breakup with Tenzin. It's the kind of memory that's clouded several times over by time and alcohol and the noise of the place and maybe even by something akin to wishful thinking. Lin doesn't think she'd believe herself if she were a witness being interviewed.

 _Not with people I've ever been in love with_.

Lin doesn't know why it even matters whether or not these words are true. They haven't spoken about what happened that day in the club, and the tacit agreement to forget it ever happened has served their ongoing friendship well. Lin certainly said some regrettable things, things that she doesn't know why she ever thought were _true_ , let alone appropriate to voice—although she has some trouble remembering her exact wording these many years later. She still remembers what Kya said verbatim.

The memory clings to random things sometimes.

 

*

 

Lin's experiencing a sinking feeling that doesn't match up with any of her logical thoughts.

" _Spirits, really?_ " She looks at Kya, who drags her travel bag behind her up the dock, waves the other travellers on the boat she's just arrived on goodbye and then looks back with a measure of confusion.

"What are you on about?"

"Betrothal necklace," Lin points out, raising an eyebrow as she appraises Kya's newest accessory.

"Oh, yeah. Made it myself. You reach a certain age and it's a trial walking around the south pole without one; people are always asking why you haven't got someone or trying to step in and _be_ that someone, because _of course_ anyone who's not engaged or married already must want to be. I'm well past the age where all that crap starts, so according to some people my standards must be _lower than ever_. I wish the damn necklaces had never come back into fashion after the war so people who don't know me at all would stop presuming to know what I want!" Kya grumbles in frustration for a few moments longer, then lightens. "Anyway, I think I did a good job with the carving. It's a pretty thing, so keeping it on isn't a problem. It's just like any other necklace. Besides, Mom's betrothal necklace was never about betrothal either."

"It's a nice stone," says Lin. It looks like carved ice, clear and glistening. Lin can sense the purity of it with her bending.

She understands Kya's frustrations about as much as she's ever understood anything; she's explained that _just because Tenzin was the last person she was with doesn't mean she's hung up on him_ so many times over the years that she's long since worn through the last of her patience for people who assume women who are single must long to _fix_ that about themselves.

At least Lin's mother isn't always on her back about finding someone. Toph never married, did the opposite of ever settling down, so she doesn't get to expect it of Lin. (Besides, Su's settled down enough for the both of them.) This is one area in which Lin has felt lucky to have Toph as her parent rather than Kya's mother or father. Aang and Katara found each other when they were children and they both just _knew_ somehow, knew with such certainty that they were able to hold on to each other through whatever complications arose. But it doesn't work that way for everybody else. It was difficult for Aang to comprehend anything else, and Katara remains much the same, although very slightly more in touch with the need to consider one's options.

"Maybe I should make one as well," Lin jokes.

Kya is amused, but not in the way Lin intended. "Lin Beifong wearing a necklace?" she smirks. "I'd pay to see that."

"You can buy me the silver, then."

"I'll buy you the ribbon," Kya laughs. She bends down and picks a small rock up off the ground. It's obviously come from a nearby beach because it's been sanded smooth by the ocean. It remains wonky, grey-brown and very nondescript. "Here," Kya passes it to Lin, "free pendant."

Lin puts the rock in her pocket.

It stays there until she's been in the habit of fidgeting with it for so long she's reluctant to throw the thing away.

 

*

 

"...She's so unlike Aang it's hard to believe."

"Did you never hear of Avatar Kyoshi? A little aggression isn't necessarily out of character."

Lin smooths her loose hair back from her forehead and sighs into the receiver that's clenched between her shoulder and her cheek. "I guess not. But she's so reckless about it—"

"She's young," Kya says. And Lin appreciates that it must be hard for her to talk about the new Avatar given that the old one was her father. "Dad had to grow up really fast because of the war. I'm happy to hear that Korra's still feeling her youth. Might not last long."

Lin murmurs, "I still wish she'd do it some way that doesn't make my life difficult. At least she's pretty good backup in a fight."

"You like her," Kya chuckles, "I can hear it in your voice."

"Lies and slander. Spirits only know why I even tell you anything when this is the response I get."

"Ha. You love me."

It's a throwaway line but it slips between the plates of Lin's armour and pierces the skin in a way that only truth can.

"Was there anything in particular you called to talk about?" Kya asks.

"No."

Lin just called because she wanted to hear Kya's voice. She missed it, and with everything that's been going on around her in Republic City with the Equalist threat and Tarrlok's sham of a taskforce, she needed someone to lean on and she wanted it to be Kya. It's been a long while since she was last in the city and Lin misses being able to see her face while they talk, misses pretty much the only person who gives Lin hugs that are appreciated by both parties.

 

*

 

"It was terrifying."

Kya's never heard Lin say such words so frankly. Whatever Lin actually admits to is guaranteed to be a shadow of the real fear or pain she's dealing with, so it chills Kya to imagine what her friend is going through this time.

"He just pressed his hand to my forehead and— and it was gone. Like I was empty. And I couldn't sense anything—suddenly the earth was nothing more than mud staining my trouser knees and sticking in my hair. I could feel the surface of it where it touched me and no more than that."

Kya imagines being at sea without waterbending. It'd have to be nauseating, the way air travel is for her. She begins to imagine what it would be like to have her bending taken away from her right out there in the middle of the ocean, to feel it drain away until all she could sense of the endless water was whatever touched a hand thrust over the side of the boat...

"Lin..." she says—because there's been silence over the line for a minute too long, but she doesn't know what else to fill it with.

"Are you ever going to come back?" Lin asks eventually, voice weary and small. _Small._

Kya starts planning her trip.

 

*

 

Lin watches the romantic disasters of her most junior detective unfold. Yes, the memory of her younger self's less than calm approach to dating and breakups is brought to mind—but at the same time seeing Mako and all Avatar Korra's other friends squabbling reinforces the fact that Lin is nothing like that old self nowadays. Seeing someone else at that age reminds her of just how long ago it was that she herself was there. She's been single for decades and she hasn't even noticed it for most of that time—not even when surrounded by married couples, their kids, and youths all switching partners back and forth like they're at a dance. Frankly Lin doesn't know where they all find the time for it in their lives. Hers is more than full enough.

The only things she might want to add to it are more of the moments when Kya comes to stay, and crashes at Lin's rather than on Air Temple Island, and sits next to Lin on her stiff little couch while Lin reads reports and Kya flicks through some romance novel—the kind she's liked too much ever since they were children—and falls asleep leaning against Lin's shoulder, long metallic grey hair falling everywhere.

On one such occasion Lin picks up the paperback Kya's been consuming and dares to skim a paragraph. It's dreadful, but somehow not as dreadful as she expects it to be. There are still altogether too many creative euphemisms for things being used, but the occasional phrase does hit home and conjure some image that sends a shiver up her spine. She wonders who Kya might think about when she reads these novels—whether she ever pictures anyone real, or just has dalliances with fictional heroines from title to title—and then feels guilty for intruding on such a thing even in her own thoughts.

 _Not people I've ever been in love with_.

Has Kya ever thought about—

Wait, does Lin _want_ her to have thought about—

Lin puts the book on the floor in front of the couch and returns her attention to the gruesome details of a local murder she has a wild suspicion may be related to a case from forty years back.

As she works, idle thoughts weave through the back of her mind about consistent taste in books, reopening cold cases, how distant her teenage self now feels, and the way the Avatar spirit remains constant at the same time as becoming entirely different people.

It gets late, and she wants to move to her bed (or at least her desk chair) so that she won't wake up with a terrible crick in her neck, but Kya's still leaning on her. Lin smooths a bit of hair out of her sleeping face and Kya snuggles into Lin's breast. The position is awkward and she doesn't even mind. Her arm is cramping where it lies under Kya's back and she'd like nothing better than to keep it there forever.

"Shit," Lin mutters, because she's too tired to form coherent thoughts, but even half-conscious she knows what trouble smells like. Ordinarily if she catches a whiff of it she'll turn around, walk briskly off in the opposite direction. This is Kya, though, so that's impossible. The opposite is more likely to happen. Lin wonders what it would be like if it did. _Nice_ , her brain supplies; _it'd be nice._ "Shit." She doesn't know how to ask Kya to spend more time with her. She doesn't know how she'd justify it. _Can you just stay at my place until I figure out whether or not I might want you to be in love with me?_ "Shit."

Kya stirs. "Mmnwhat?"

"Time to get up," Lin says, now that she has the opportunity. "I'm not sleeping like this and you shouldn't either."

 

*

 

"Hey Chief," Kya _purrs_ down the line. Spirits, Lin was right not to put this call on speaker. That voice overrides all the composure she's painstakingly worked up since she last laid eyes on the source of her confusion.

"Don't—"

"Don't give me your _Don't call me that_ routine, Lin, you can't dispute that you _are_ Chief."

"Fine. Just don't say it in that voice."

"What voice? This is just my voice."

Lin growls in frustration. Kya chuckles down the line. The sound is strangely heady, the husk in her voice addictive, something that should float on hot breath from lips just brushing the shell of her ear—

Lin shakes herself out of whatever ridiculous dream she's fallen victim to. "Have you got a reason for calling me?" she demands.

"Just wanted to check that you're coming to Varrick and Zhu Li's wedding."

Lin groans. "Yes," she replies, "I've been roped into going. Su even bought me an outfit." The outfit is actually quite nice, not that Lin will admit that to her sister. Su would dine out on such a confession for _years_ and Lin would have no choice but to estrange herself from her family all over again.

"I'll be getting into town a few days early and I was wondering if I could beg a spot on your couch. Just in case things get too frantic on the island and I need to escape."

"That would be fine," says Lin.

She hangs up the phone and for the rest of the day finds herself inexplicably frustrated by the question of whether Kya will actually call on her backup accommodation or not. She has _less_ than no interest in being caught up in this kind of juvenile hope, hanging on someone's words like they're what her entire week hinges upon. Lin doesn't wait around, idly hoping and dreaming. She gets things done.

 

*

 

She promises to pay for dinner, which secures Kya's attendance easily enough.

"So what's this all about?" Kya asks with a raised brow as the waiter lays a napkin in her lap. "It must be about something; this is _not_ your usual scene."

"And what is my usual scene?" Lin replies, flustered.

Kya picks up one of the multiple forks set out in front of her and fiddles with it, lightly poking the pad of one finger with its prongs. Lin watches, catches herself watching, looks away so hard she almost strains her neck.

"I don't know, somewhere with more whiskey, and dirt on the floor. Less crystal and mirrors on the walls and," Kya holds up the multiple forks tellingly.

"Fair," Lin calls it. "Look, I invited you here because I wanted to talk. It's not... easy for me, to broach a subject like this one. I thought getting out of my usual zone would make sure I went through with it."

It's a brutally honest explanation and it gets Kya's attention. Lin doesn't back down when she's outnumbered twenty-to-one by triad members, waiting for backup she's not even sure is on its way, so she swallows her uncertainty and stands her ground now too.

"Remember what you said to me, that night at the Chasm?" she asks.

"Back when we were kids? _And_ drunk? I can't say that I do."

"We were adults," Lin says. "Otherwise I wouldn't have been drinking."

"We were _barely_ adults, but okay. What did I say that you've been holding on to all these years, Lin?"

"You—" she begins, and realises she'd been counting on Kya remembering as much as herself. It's easy to refer to something that's already been said. It's harder to actually say the words. "You said... or insinuated... that you had been in love with me."

Kya draws in a sharp breath, lets it out as a long, measured sigh. "I don't see what this has to do with anything," she says. "Yeah, I had a crush on you when we were kids. That was a long time ago, Lin. I've moved past it, and of all things _that_ shouldn't have any affect on our friendship now. Please, Lin, I've been over you a long time. Why are you even dredging this up now?"

The waiter brings a pitcher of fancy cucumber-aloe water and fills their glasses. Lin snatches hers the second he stops pouring. She drains it quickly.

"Can I get you anything else to drink, ladies?" the waiter asks, looking a little surprised at Lin's apparent desperate thirst.

"I'll have one of those," Kya says, and points at a table somewhere behind Lin. "The one with the seaweed garnish. And I think my friend here will have whiskey—give her your best recommendation, somewhere mid-price range, a Ba Sing Se variety if you've got one."

"We have several," he assures them.

"Make it a double," Lin adds, before the man departs.

A few beats pass, until Lin figures it's on her to take the reins, and says, "So."

That goes down well.

"So," Kya echoes. "Was there anything else, or did you just come here to accuse me of harbouring some ancient crush?"

Lin wishes that drink would hurry. "I didn't mean it as an accusation," she replies, keeping her voice level and cool. It takes a lot of strength, but she's been exercising the particular muscle that it takes not to snap at people a whole lot lately what with Su and all the reckless youngsters in her life.

"Then how _did_ you mean it? If you're going to the trouble of bringing it up surely you feel there's some kind of problem in the way our relationship is. What is it that you think needs fixing, Lin?"

"Not accusatory..." Lin says slowly. Slowly as the rocks standing in the sea erode, ever nearing a momentous toppling. "Maybe... hopeful."

"What—" Kya begins to ask, confused, then halts. " _Oh_. Oh. Lin. I had no idea."

"Neither did I until recently. I guess that means it's a new thing. Something I've grown into. Only took me roughly fifty years longer to get there than it took you."

Kya shakes her head. There's a crease in her brow that Lin knows is reserved for pain; for funerals and dying pets and suffering children and the delivery of unhappy truths.

"Lin, I'm not still there," she says, and her eyes stare big and wet into Lin's. Lin thinks she feels the beginnings of a wobble, a crack, in the thread of a foundation holding her upright above the surface. "If you can grow into it then you can understand that I've grown out of it. The day you told me about your crush on Tenzin was the day I started growing out of it."

The waiter finally arrives with Lin's whiskey, and, to the credit of the establishment, it is a generous double. She takes a mouthful straight up but then slows herself to sips, trying to distract herself with the taste and the burn.

"And there's no likelihood that that old feeling will resurrect itself?"

"How much of what you felt at fifteen would you resurrect today?"

And she's right, quite obviously; Lin's moved so far beyond the kid she was once—even the adult she was quite recently. She's no desire to backtrack that way, and Kya's never been about holding on to the past. She's always been about moving, moving onward to experience somewhere new for better or worse.

Maybe Lin's asking the wrong questions.

Another moment of thought and it's as clear in her mind as anything that yes, she has.

"Forget history, forget what you felt when you were fifteen," Lin says, and she sees Kya react to her sudden decisiveness with relief, relief that Lin's talking like herself again. And since she's laid all her cards on the table already, she may as well ask this: "Do you think that, now or in the future, you might feel something for me?"

Kya swishes her strange seaweedy cocktail around in its glass. Half the icy-thick bluish liquid has already been drained up through the long, striped straw, though Lin didn't notice it being drunk.

"I wish I could give you an answer right away," Kya says."I wish I could just jump in or opt out as easily as that. But this is one I've got to think about."

It's not a no.

Lin feels better grounded already. The sea and winds buffeting her fall into a lull. There's still grey in the clouds, but it might just pass over her, might leave her standing after all.

Relieved steadiness gives way to hope and excitement and affection—which make the kind of giddy, fizzy cocktail Lin usually finds ridiculous, but she's tipsy with it tonight and has no desire for sobriety.

"The kind of thinking you have to do alone, or the kind that might be helped along by a trial run?" Lin asks. "A date, for instance."

Kya grins. "Lin Beifong, that was almost smooth. You're full of surprises, even after a lifetime."

Change, Lin thinks to herself. There's such a great capacity for it in even the stubbornest spirit—whether switching bodies and lives or just weathering years.

 

*

 

To Lin's surprise, the wedding is enjoyable. There's good food, music, and a sense in the air that everyone is finally _enjoying_ the peace that's come so hard-earned, not just trying to use the lull to recover, ready for another round of violence. Lin think Zhu Li's insane to want to marry Varrick, and she's not the only one, but she concedes happily enough that if anyone can handle it Zhu Li Moon is that woman. There has been change in the now-newlyweds, too—change Lin's been glad to see, even if Varrick's personal growth has required an extraordinary level of maintenance from his partner.

"Can I offer the lady a drink?" Kya appears at Lin's elbow, already holding two cups, though Lin supposes that if she refuses Kya will happily down them both herself.

"I thought this wasn't our date," Lin whispers, taking a cup. She sips the clear liquid through the straw. There's a slight, pleasant sweetness and so much alcohol behind it that a lot of the dancing happening around them starts to make sense.

"It's not our date. But I can still get you a drink, can't I?"

Lin's not going to argue.

"What about a dance, would that be pushing my luck?"

"Bring me about four more of these and _then_ ask."

 

*

 

It wasn't a date, but Kya still has that prickly warm feeling in her gut as she and Lin stumble home afterwards, Lin's arm slung over Kya's shoulder, Kya's hooked around Lin's waist.

"I'll take the couch," Lin declares when their fumbling hands finally get them past the locks on her front door (platinum, of course, so at least Lin's drunken attempts to crush her way through the frustrating bits of metal are unsuccessful).

"So chivalrous," Kya laughs. "But I happen to like your couch. 's comfy."

"I like my couch too," Lin groans, flopping down onto it as though to demonstrate. "Never even sleep in m' bed."

Lin's bed is upstairs, and that feels too damn far away. Kya's still dressed, but after removing her jewellery and untying her hair all she's got left is a dress that she can easily sleep in tonight and worry about tomorrow. She grabs Lin's legs by the ankles and tosses them off the side of the couch to clear a space, into which she immediately plants herself.

Lin grumbles something inaudible, already halfway passed out.

Kya grabs a little pillow she finds tucked into the edge of the couch (can it be a throw pillow? At Lin's house? Su's doing, perhaps? She'll have to ask who put it here... but in the morning), puts it on top of Lin's thigh and falls sideways so as to rest her head on it. She's barely aware of her cheek finding the fabric before she's out.

 

Kya wakes up because she smells something.

_Burning._

"Spirits, what's happening?" She bolts upright, flustered.

There's a laugh from nearby, in the kitchenette. "Singed the edges of the toast, that's all."

"What toast, how are you making toast?" Kya rubs her eyes, clears her throat, but the trickle of consciousness coming back to her doesn't clarify the situation at all.

"With the toaster."

"I meant why."

"For breakfast."

"Since when do you even eat breakfast, let alone _cook_ it?"

"It's only toast, Kya," Lin grumbles—that adorable grumble when she's embarrassed at being caught out doing something uncharacteristic and sweet. Lin Beifong is making Kya breakfast. Lin Beifong carefully extracted herself from the couch without rousing Kya so she could wake her up to a full plate of, well, toast. Maybe one day she'll work her way up to eggs or pancakes. Maybe one day Kya will get to wake up to that.

She catches herself, goes to revise the thought, but finds that she can think it again deliberately without any trouble. Kya would wake up to this new Lin who tries to cook for her again, would prefer to do that than to wake up any other way.

There's something old mixed into the feeling, inevitably—the comfort and strength of a friendship that's travelled over rocky decades—but the falling Kya's doing now feels new, too. Like she and Lin are new people in a new world and this thing right here that's happening between them is so young and soft she wants to feed it, shelter it, see how it grows.

She sneaks up behind Lin (not too quietly; Lin is holding a chef's knife and cutting... _tomatoes? Since when does Lin Beifong keep fresh fruit or vegetables in her house_ ). With one hand, Kya sweeps the silvery hair off the back of Lin's neck—she likes it loose like this, so rarely does she get to see it this way, and never before has she been lucky enough to touch it—and presses her lips softly to the skin underneath. Lin's shoulders jump with all the sudden violence of an alarm going off, and Kya nearly cracks her nose against the back of Lin's skull.

"Sorry," she says. "Should have asked."

"No, no," Lin replies. Flustered. Her hands keep chopping but the pieces are large and wonky now. "It's okay, I was just taken by surprise. Not a bad surprise."

"Alright then, Chef Beifong," Kya purrs, and returns to her ministrations.

"Don't—"

"What if I just call you my date, today, would that be better?"

Lin falls quiet, hands stilling with the blade resting on the middle of a tomato. "That would be much better," she says, with feeling.


End file.
